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Thread: December 2014 Frugals

  1. #1
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    December 2014 Frugals

    Really, it's the 10th of December and no thread!!!

    I set aside some $$ for Christmas spending in November and set my budget to meet that amount of $$ - will probably come in under the budget.

    Not to be too tacky - but of my 6 sisters, when I have sent/delivered gifts, I have only once received a true thank you and appreciation of the gift. In reality we all have what we need and given our age, are only weeding things out.

    The niece and nephews and the grand-nephew and grand-niece will get a book and some $$ (for the older ones).

    Made a menu plan for the holidays and buying groceries for that plan. Then no last minute, "I don't know. What do you want for dinner?'. All plans allow for brunch/lunch within the next day or two.

  2. #2
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    Menards advertised Scott TP on sale for $5.77 (8 pk /1,000 sheets per roll) in their flyer, and in-store it was marked $4.99. Woo Hoo!

  3. #3
    Senior Member cdttmm's Avatar
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    Thanks, chrissieq for starting the thread! I keep meaning to, but haven't had any frugals worth writing about until now!

    So here goes... Even though I've been to Minnesota three times already this year, I really wanted to go home for a holiday visit as well. My younger brother eloped over the summer and I have spent very little time with my new SIL so didn't want to miss the first family Christmas with her there. I've been watching the prices of plane tickets for weeks and yesterday morning the price dropped $120 enabling me to buy the cheapest plane ticket for my holiday travel in more than 5 years. Score!

    Gift-giving is a very simple affair in my family...finally. I bought a book on gardening for honeybees for my mom when I was at a beekeeping conference a few weeks ago. Everyone else will get honey from our bees. That's it. My in-laws don't like to keep it simple even though they should (for financial reasons, if nothing else!). They will insist on giving us something so we requested iTunes gift cards, which is the same thing we've requested three years running.
    The brain is wider than the sky. -- Emily Dickinson

  4. #4
    Member Seven's Avatar
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    Everyone in my family just wants chocolate from our local chocolate makers. So I don't have to worry much about buying presents.
    Without the need to buy lots of presents, I think December is quite easy for frugality. All the shops are crowded and play loud christmas music - I dislike crowded noisy places, so I feel no desire to go shopping.

  5. #5
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    I have strayed somewhat from extreme frugality. It's amazing how much tracking and blogging does to keep me where I should be; when that falls off the spending goes up.

    I'm baking bread today, planning leftovers for lunch, and grinding corn for our cornmeal mush breakfasts. I found some brown rice that we weren't eating (it's medium grain and the family prefers basmati), so I decided to add that to the corn in a 3:1 ratio. I think it will taste fine and that no one will really notice.

    I knitting away, working on simple Christmas gifts. I decided that we would downsize Christmas once again and am planning a $100 Holiday for the first time (although we may go with $150 - the book was written 16 years ago and this year at least I still need gifts for the extended family). My boys received new bikes last month, so there is no reason for them not to be on board. Everything we give will be homemade, local, consumable, or experiential, and even with a $150 budget it will be extremely frugal. The tree is the big question; our artificial tree died after 13 years and while we bought a fresh tree last year, that was $100 after tax, so we aren't doing that again.

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    December is not a frugal month, IMHE. Stessfull too (I hate this time of year, too many bad memories). So this year I decided to change things.
    I tried a couple years back to do one thing, but the governenment offices are closed on Black Friday, so the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I paid my personal and real property taxes.
    I had also done some running for work and turned in a bunch of receipts and put that money aside, along with $30 to finish all the Christmas money minus two presents.
    That left for this month, Insurance (mailing), a CC bill (online purchases, mostly for a project I had money set aside for and was waiting until sales and one thing I needed parts for), and the utility bills, as well as a roll of wrapping paper to two (anyone know where is the cheapest).
    Next month will come the bill for my dad and mom's big Xmas gift, that the siblings are going in with me on. (I expect if I get Christmas money as usual from work, I am putting it towards that).

    Been checking the IRS site for tax forms yet, but used last to guestimate what I will get back (rather get back then owe, not a lot but I put it in the property tax account), I wish there was a way that, that, zero'd out (didn't owe, didn't get back).

    Not really frugal, but less stressful.

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    I'll share a frugal gift idea. It was for several friends/former co-workers. We only see each 3-4x/year, but we've made it a simple holiday tradition to meet up for Happy hour in December and trade a little gift like a bottle of lotion. This year I bought a package of small gift bags at the dollar store and filled each one with a tiny candy cane and a can of black-eyed peas.
    I passed them out and explained to most who didn't know that if you eat black-eyed peas on New Years Day you'll have good luck throughout the year. They were tickled at that and thought it was fun. So each of my gifts cost ~ $1 and everyone enjoyed the idea.

  8. #8
    Senior Member rosarugosa's Avatar
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    I can't believe we got to the 10th without a Frugals thread! Thanks for getting us on track Chrissie!
    Seven: Is your local chocolate shop well-known? I think that's a great plan. A few years ago, one of the jewelry chains had a Valentine's Day ad on the radio saying how women would much rather have jewelry than chocolate for a gift. Every time I heard it, I thought "speak for yourself!"
    I just dropped a few sweaters off at the local consignment shop. I've never consigned anything before, but I thought it would be worth a try. Then I went to the library and found two books on my wish list, and a librarian explained the inter-library loaning system to me, so I have two more books from my list on the way. This system vastly expands my borrowing options. I walked both places, so bonus points!
    The shopping bag I used to bring my sweaters to the store had a receipt at the bottom from a candy store in Maine from Feb for $92.84. I was clearly not in a frugal mood that day! Did I mention that I love chocolate?

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    The cornmeal/rice mush experiment worked; I noticed that the porridge didn't have as much corn flavor, but no one commented, and the texture was the same. I think I'll add a little salt next time.

    I haven't done a proper grocery shop since before Thanksgiving, but we're still cobbling together decent meals (although we ate the last of the cabbage today).

    I taught the older teen to make popcorn; now he has a cheap snack that he can make daily, which will save money. He previously would choose fruit for almost every snack, eating 8+ pieces of fruit daily. It's great for him, but he doesn't need quite that much.

  10. #10
    Senior Member bekkilyn's Avatar
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    I think the thing I'm most excited about this month is the bidet bottle that I decided to try. It came earlier this week and I've been using it since then and it's been *wonderful*! My tp costs are going to go down drastically because of this little blue miracle!
    Rebecca

    Saddle up my traveling shoes, I'm bound to walk away these blues.

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